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by Obie Fernandez.
Original Post: SAIGON is the best new restaurant in Bangalore
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Last night I enjoyed one of the most delightful meals that I've had in Bangalore since I got here over a month ago. The restaurant is called SAIGON and it opened three short days ago (Sep 8, 2006). The cuisine is described as "Pan-Asian". My group found it quite by mistake, having started the night looking for good sushi at a well-reviewed Japanese restaurant named Dahlia's on Church Street. Unfortunately, being a Sunday night we found the restaurant closed. I noticed what appeared to be a very nice looking place on the top floor of the Ruby Tuesdays building and we decided to check it out.
The manager of SAIGON, John Tony, welcomed us in and from the start our group noticed that this was no ordinary Bangalore restaurant. The design and construction is top-notch. The decor is very nice and consistent -- the place was obviously built with an eye for detail. Even the small audio speakers on the ceiling match the decor. It looks as a fine restaurant in any other cosmopolitan city should. I mention that opinion because most everywhere else I've been in Bangalore (with the exception of the Leela looks like it was built by careless hacks.
Service: Top-notch. Mr. Tony was our waiter and welcomed us warmly from the moment we walked in and were seated. He apologized for not having a liquor license yet and explained their recent low-key opening. Throughout the night he and his excellent wait-staff did a great job of keeping us happy. The food was served promptly and piping-hot. All our questions about the menu were answered honestly, to our satisfaction and with a smile. Towards the end of dinner Mr. Tony brought over the visibly-elated chef, so that we could shower him with compliments about how delicious and well-prepared the dishes were.
Food: Simply scrumptious! The six of us (including a few reluctant vegetarians) had a great time ordering a huge variety of dishes from Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand. I started with the Tom Kung chicken soup -- it was amazing (and spicy as hell). I actually love Thai spice and this soup did not disappoint. As I had my soup I ate one of the peppers and my mouth exploded in hot spicy goodness, which is good except I didn't have anything to tame the burning, my mouth actually started feeling like it was on fire. That's Thai spicy! I practically begged Mr. Tony for some sort of milk drink -- they didn't have any on the menu, but no problem. I was promptly served a coconut milk mocktail which calmed the fire, and also turned out to be extremely delicious.
I later asked the bartender about the ingredients of the mocktail. He replied that it was coconut syrup, milk, a bit of vanilla ice cream and the taste of "these hands", holding up his hands. Due to the accent, I didn't quite get the last part that he said and asked him to repeat. He did and I still didn't get it but I politely smiled and did the head bobble. Kris later remarked that he was biting his tongue real hard, desperately wanting to throw in the smartass comment "Hope you mean your right hand" Um, yeah, that probably wouldn't have gone over too well. Thanks for exercising impulse control, Kris!
So, what else... I suppose I should have borrowed a menu or written down the dishes that we ate. Unfortunately I didn't and since I don't usually do restaurant reviews on my blog, I'll just end this post with some additional relevant details:
Price: 4200 rupees (including a fat tip) for six people. We didn't have any alcohol, which would have inflated the bill, but we did have dishes from all courses including dessert. That is extremely reasonable IMO compared to other restaurants of its type in the area. Most of the starters and entrees are priced in the 125-250 rupees range. We were also comped a large fruit dish in addition to our meal, a very nice touch -- in fact, mention that you heard about SAIGON from me (Obie from ThoughtWorks) and you will get a fruit dish too. I have a few more weeks left in Bangalore and you can be sure that I'll be back to Saigon as often as possible.
SAIGON
(Pan-Asian Restaurant)
John Tony, Restaurant Manager
3rd Floor, Asha Enclave
#20 Church Street (off MG and Brigade Road)
Bangalore 560 001
Tel 080 4112 2855
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